REVIEW: The cruel joke of '2 Valid IDs'
2 Valid IDs is headlined by actors known for their comedic chops, but anyone expecting a humorous take on the absurdities of Philippine bureaucracy will soon find their blood boiling at how relentlessly our systems continue to fail us.
The story follows Sylvia (Marietta Subong, aka Pokwang), a poor farmer who desperately needs to claim money sent to her for the medical treatment of her hospitalized husband Ramon (Joey Marquez). At the remittance center, however, she is turned away because she cannot produce the required two valid IDs. What begins as a seemingly simple bureaucratic hurdle sends Sylvia on a difficult journey to secure the documents she needs, placing her in situations that test her character, her beliefs, and ultimately, her sense of morality.
The settings are all too familiar to Pinoys who have either experienced these struggles firsthand or know someone who has. There is the crowded public ward that reflects the sorry state of many government hospitals in the country. There are the friends and families of sick loved ones who form an almost familial bond through shared hardship. And then some have learned to take advantage of a broken system, preying on the very people already suffering because of it.
It would have been easy for the filmmakers to populate the story with obvious antagonists. Instead, what we mostly see are people trying, in their own ways, to survive the obstacles placed before them. The true villain is the bureaucracy itself, a system that dehumanizes the public while slowly desensitizing the employees trapped within it.
It would also have been easy to turn the whole thing into satire. Director Ma-an L. Asuncion-Dagñalan, working from a brilliant script by Abet Pagdagdagan Raz, said they initially tried to make the film a black comedy. Instead, they allow the tragedy to unfold almost without relief, pacing the story in a way that forces the audience to sit through every indignity the characters endure.
Viewers are made to witness, or perhaps relive, the long lines, the redundant requirements, the endless back-and-forth, and every small humiliation Sylvia must endure just to move one step closer to what she needs. Each minor breakthrough gives just enough reason for hope to flicker, only for another obstacle to appear.
And so the audience waits for that hope to finally come through. There's anticipation for Subong to throw out a quip, anything that might make a laugh and briefly break the suffocating tone of despair—but that moment never really comes. Instead, Subong gives Sylvia a quiet restraint that people often romanticize as resilience, while underneath it lies the helpless agony that far too many Filipinos know intimately.
That may be the cruelest joke of 2 Valid IDs. Our bureaucracy has become so absurd, so normalized, and so casually dismissive of human suffering that the title itself sounds like the setup to a comedy.
We hear “two valid IDs” and laugh because we already know the ridiculousness that phrase represents. Filipinos know the circular requirements, the impossible demands, the absurdity of needing an ID to get another ID just so you can prove that you are who you say you are.
The joke is that the system persists. The tragedy is that we have learned to expect it.
If only it were actually funny.
Watch the trailer below.
2 Valid IDs is screening as part of the Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival until Aug. 18 at the Red Carpet Cinemas in Shangri-La Plaza, Gateway Cineplex 18, and Ayala Malls Cinemas.
